I paused once I had my boxer briefs on, and hesitated for only a second before deciding to tell her the truth. “Forgot he was here, forgot he was sick. Forgot everything . . .”

Red stained her cheeks as she shrugged into her shirt, but she remained silent as she climbed off the bed and pulled on the shorts I had tossed at her. She walked slowly up to me to kiss my bare chest, her blue eyes flashed up to mine for a brief second when she said, “Glad I wasn’t the only one. Give me just a minute, I’ll be back.”

I watched her walk out of the room, then turned to grab my jeans. After I finished buttoning them up, I bent to pick up my shirt, but froze when something on her nightstand next to a small stack of books caught my eye.

No.

I stayed there, hunched over and staring at the offending object for what felt like years as I tried to make myself see something else. Something other than the brown, slightly worn, soft leather journal that had entered my life and changed everything just over a month ago.

After long moments, I finally forced myself to straighten, and walked over to the nightstand. I picked up the pen that sat on top, and ran my hand over the journal.

Not her. Not her, not her, not her. Not this. It can’t be the same.

My Charlie reads books, she doesn’t write songs.

Words, to me, had been an escape from the Deacon everyone knew. She’d been a way for me to be myself when no one else had allowed me to be, and then I hadn’t been able to leave her.

I opened the cover, and my eyes shut when I saw the writing. “Fuck.”

I flipped faster through the book until I got to the pages where we’d written back and forth to each other, then slammed the journal shut and backed away from the nightstand.

“This isn’t happening. This isn’t fucking happening,” I hissed.

It didn’t matter that I’d visualized Charlie as Words, she couldn’t be her.

Because before I had been terrified about what Charlie would say if she’d ever found out about Words, but now I didn’t know what to do about the fact that while I’d been trying to win Charlie over during the day, she’d spent her nights freely talking to a stranger in a way I always had to beg her to talk to me.

I snatched my shirt off the floor and shrugged into it and my shoes as I hurried out of Charlie’s room and down the hall. I entered the living room just as she did from the other side of the house, and her eyebrows pulled together when she saw me completely dressed.

Fear and hurt flashed through her eyes before she could try to hide it, but her shoulders still sagged as she studied me. When she spoke, her voice shook. “You’re leaving.”

It wasn’t a question, and it sounded as if she’d expected this all along.

I wanted to fall to my knees in front of her and wrap my arms around her. I wanted to tell her that not everyone would do what Ben had done to her; that despite my past, the guy she had given her heart to was the real Deacon. The Deacon that wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the night, and every other night, in the same bed as her.

But all I could think about were my countless conversations with Words—things Charlie had thought she was saying to another man—and my need to prove that this wasn’t real somehow. That maybe she’d just found the journal because she worked at Mama’s.

It took me a second to realize I was nodding before I could shake my head. “No. Not like that,” I said quickly.

Her face was now guarded as her head slowly bowed, her stance rigid as she curled her arm around her waist.

No. No, don’t hide from me, Charlie Girl, I thought as my stomach churned and chest ached.

I just needed to get my other phone and check something before I lost my damn mind.

I finally blurted out the only other thing I could think of in that moment. “Condoms.” I swallowed past my unease, and pointed at the door.

Charlie’s blue eyes darted to the door before locking on me. “You’re going to get condoms,” she said in the same tone.

I could feel the one in my wallet as though it weighed ten pounds. For the first time since I found the journal, I took a steadying breath, and met her gaze straight on as I told her the only truth I could right now. “Like I said, you make me forget everything, and I know I’d forget again the next time I get close enough to have you. I need to protect you, or else I’ll be no better than he was.”

Her guarded expression cracked, and her face finally softened. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

She dipped her head in a nod. “Yeah. Just let yourself in when you get back.”

Instead of leaving, I took long, quick steps toward her, and brought my mouth down onto hers as I pulled her close.

She melted against me, and I forced myself not to say everything I was thinking.

Please forgive me.

Please don’t be her.

Please understand. . .

“Come back soon,” Charlie whispered against my lips, and without looking at her, I turned and strode for the door.

Despite the twitching in my hands to grab Candy from my center console, where I stashed it most days now, I waited until I was out of Charlie’s driveway and off her street. Then continued to drive until I was near one of the docks at the lake.

I put my car in park and just stared out at the lake for long seconds until I couldn’t stand it any longer, then dug in the console until I found the phone. It felt like I was moving through water as I went to the contacts and opened up Words’s, then pulled out my other phone, and did the same to pull up Charlie’s.

I’d just glanced at Words’s number, so I already knew. But I refused to believe it until I was holding my phones side by side.

My head dropped back against the headrest as dread filled me, and I barked out a curse as I flung Candy across the car. It hit the passenger door with a loud smack and fell to the floor seconds before it chimed.

Then chimed again.

I slowly looked down to where it lay. My chest felt tight and heavy as I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t her.

It couldn’t be her. It had to be someone else.

I leaned over to grab the phone off the floor, and tapped on the screen until the messages were pulled up.

Words.

A brief flash of disbelief and jealousy flared in my chest before I told myself that she might be doing exactly what I would’ve.

I’d been trying to walk away from Words for days, and hadn’t been able to. But I knew without a doubt that if I hadn’t found out who Words was, I would have walked away from her without a second thought after what had happened between Charlie and me tonight.